a good universe next door
by alternatedunham
Summary: Instead of erasing Peter, the Machine gave him the power travel to an infinite number of alternate universes. Based on a fanvid by maitikaHan.
1. chapter one

_A/N: I can't believe I'm finally posting this fic. I honestly can't. I started working on it a little less than a year ago, if not a year ago (yikes!), but it's here now, which is crazy and awesome. I wanted to post it yesterday, for the second anniversary, but whatever. Editing happens._

_This fic is based on a maitikaHan vid entitled 'It was just a dream (P&amp;O - AU)' (if you've never heard of maitikaHan - dude, what?); if you've seen it, or decide to watch before venturing onto the fic, I'm warning you now: there is a bit that's different. Namely: [spoilers!]. I tried to write a more apocalypse-y version, but the words just didn't come, and this fic is what happened. No disrespect to maitikaHan or her vid; I'm just not good at writing apocalypses, apparently. It ended up more like the second half of 'Clannad: After Story' than anything else, and if you've ever seen that anime, you'll know what I mean (I know, I know, I've watched an anime, send me down the river or whatever)._

_Anyways, enough of my rambling. Hope you enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: _Fringe_ owns my heart, but, sadly, I don't own it._

* * *

listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go.

\- e.e. cummings

* * *

Looking back, this whole thing must've started the second he stepped into the Machine.

When he left it, his head was throbbing, memories knotted up like a child's clumsy attempt at tying shoelaces. He knew what he had done, though, and what he had to do. Maybe it was presumptuous to think that he could singlehandedly end a transuniversal war, but it had been started over him, and he had to at least try.

Walter and Olivia locked gazes with their alternates. Peter was talking fast, explaining: _Yes, The First People, Walter, but The First People are us - you, most specifically and maybe Ella and Astrid - I don't know. I don't know who it was that took the machine back through time. But I know something else. I've seen Doomsday, and it is worse than anything you could possibly imagine. This isn't a war that can be won. Our two worlds are inextricable. If one side dies, we all die. So I've torn holes in both the universes and they lead here, to this room. A bridge so that we can begin to work together to fix -_

That was when everything - for him, anyway - went black.

He woke up in the lab, feeling like a sword was running through the entirety of his skull. Both Olivia and Astrid held one of his hands; he could hear Walter pacing about the lab, heard his distinctive gait and footfalls.

"Walter, he's awake," Astrid summoned the older man. Her voice was gentle, soft, but he still flinched. Olivia let go of his hand to run her fingers through his hair; they were cold, but the touch was soothing nonetheless.

And then Walter was there, babbling scientific terms that Peter didn't have the strength to even try to understand, fear still in his eyes (if Peter hadn't felt like his head might _explode_, he would've tried to comfort his father). He was mostly incoherent, and at Peter's confused, pained look, Olivia clarified, "You - you sort of - glitched. Walter thinks that you almost phased out of existence."

"Sounds like a regular day at the office," he quipped, and she let out a relieved, emotionally-exhausted sort of laugh, clamping her fingers over her mouth the instant that the sound escaped.

Walter started rambling again, but Peter wasn't paying attention. He was sure that he'd never been quite this glad just to exist.

* * *

A few days later, Walter came up with a theory that Peter didn't agree to test until after a lot of goading on Walter's part. Just to placate his father, Peter attempted to cross over to the other universe, to his immense surprise, succeeded. When he returned (a bit panicked, admittedly, because he didn't want to be stuck Over There), the apprehension was clear on Olivia's face, and it made him immediately forget his own moment of fear. He noticed her hand flitting up to scratch the back of her neck, and he knew what it meant.

Walter started ranting about the _endless possibilities _and such, falling into mad scientist mode, but Peter wasn't paying attention. He went to Olivia's side, placed a hand on the small of her back. Her hand flitted back to her side, and he moved his gently to intertwine their fingers.

The gestures were simple, small, but they both knew what they meant. Olivia leaned slightly closer and he did too, to whisper, underneath his father, "I missed you."

"You were only gone for a second," she returned.

He shrugged in response, and the smile on her face made him wonder why he'd ever want to leave her side, what sight in any world could be more beautiful than that.

* * *

The months that followed the revelation weren't particularly pleasant; not only was Walter running test after test on Peter, but all of them now had to make nice with the other universe, something more easily said than done.

(Olivia's nightmares came back, and it broke Peter's heart. She was always so shaken and so scared and he held her close until she settled back into a restless sleep.)

Slowly, though, piece by piece, it started getting easier. Their lives were returning to their strange version of normal; they were civil with the alternates, or at least growing somewhat used to them, and their alternates were civil with them.

Nearly a year after his experience with the Machine, possibly the best thing - and, as it would turn out eventually, the worst - happened to him and Olivia.

"Peter," she said softly, hands cradling his face, her smile so bright it surely could've powered the entirety of Boston. "I'm pregnant."

* * *

On the afternoon before everything went wrong, when he stepped into the house he and Olivia had moved into only a few weeks before, she was fast asleep on the couch from her old apartment. She'd never been one to nap (or even sleep for the number of hours that most people require to function), but she was nine months pregnant, which he imagined got exhausting at times. Not that she'd ever complain, of course.

He noticed that a couple strands of blonde hair had fallen across her face, free from her ponytail, and gently brushed them back, behind her ear. She shifted - made a small, sleeping sound - and her eyes slowly opened, focused on him. Smiled sleepily.

"Hey," she rasped.

"Hey," he returned softly. "Didn't mean to wake you."

She shook her head and reached out to card a hand through his hair. "How's Henry?"

Shortly after creating the Bridge, the other Olivia had cornered him and told him about his son, and he now visited Henry once a week. Saturday afternoons. He didn't particularly _enjoy _her company (he greatly preferred the days when she at work, and it was just him and his son, who would get passed off to the nanny when Peter had to leave) and he knew that the entire situation made Olivia uncomfortable, but they both knew he couldn't just ignore his son. _Na eín ai kalýtero ánthropo apó ton patéra sou._

"Fine. I can't believe how big he's getting, how much he's talking." He sounded sappy and fatherly - actually, he sounded a lot like Walter did sometimes, in his quieter, saner moments. "Goes by fast."

He smiled, and she did too, but it was a tight, forced smile. He didn't say anything; he wasn't stupid enough to think that just because she was civil with the other Olivia meant that all wounds had healed. He thought that maybe she'd never be fully _okay_ with Henry's existence.

She loved their daughter, though; it was already obvious.

He placed a hand on her stomach then, and when he kissed his fiancée to bring a genuine smile to her face, the baby kicked at his fingers. They both pulled back to look down.

"You don't approve?" Peter quipped. "That's pretty funny, considering that's how we ended up making you."

Olivia rolled her eyes.

And then everything was still for a moment, a rarity for them. It was nice. Peter would later wish that he'd taken her in then, memorized every feature, her sparkling eyes and smiling mouth and sleep-mussed hair. Her nose, her teeth, her ears, her eyebrows. Everything, absolutely everything.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"You okay?" he asked, moving his hand to her cheek.

"Contraction," she choked out. "Really strong one."

"Do we need to go to the hospital?"

Her only response was a stiff nod, and he helped her off the couch, helped her to the car. An excited grin crept onto his face - they were having a baby. _They were having a baby_.

* * *

"Olivia? Liv, honey, what's wrong? Hey, Liv - oh my God! Help! Somebody help! Stay with me, Liv, c'mon, stay with me. Don't leave me, sweetheart, please."

* * *

He felt dizzy, like he might pass out, or throw up. Like the world had fallen off its axis, out of the sun's gravity, but he was the only one who noticed. He was the only one who cared. What the hell was holding this universe together, if not Olivia?

"Peter," Astrid said, though she sounded millions of miles away. Her hands gripped his shoulders. "What happened?"

He couldn't move. He could not move. He didn't even know if he was breathing - _what the hell was holding this universe together?_

In a haze of grief, he was sure he'd been standing here forever, in this bustling, sterile hospital corridor.

Astrid said his name again, insistent, trying to bring him back there, to that awful place where Olivia wasn't. "Look at me," she continued. "Are Olivia and the baby okay?"

"Baby's okay," he choked out.

"And Olivia?"

He shook his head.

_What the hell was holding this universe together, with Olivia not in it?_

* * *

She looked so - so unlike herself underneath the morgue's harsh lights. Her skin was an awful grayish color; her hair was matted with sweat. When he picked up her hand, it wasn't even cold yet. She could've been sleeping - oh, it was so easy to pretend that she was just sleeping.

_Wake up, Olivia. C'mon, Liv, it's time to get up. Etta's waiting for you in the nursery._

"Hey," he murmured, voice low and thick, tears burning his eyes.

He half-expected a response. Something, anything. A miracle of the fringe division variety - she survived a car crash that left her braindead, so why not this too?

"I-I haven't seen Etta yet," he admitted (she had chosen the name, a few days after finding out the baby was a girl; _she's the closest thing to an alternate that Henry's going to get_, she had said). "Don't worry, though. I won't check out on her. I won't run."

He said it like a promise, but maybe it was a lie. He didn't know. He'd never felt like this before, not ever. Not ever.

"I'm so proud of you," he whispered shakily. "You did it, honey. She's here. We have a baby, Liv."

She was staring up at the ceiling as he spoke, seeing nothing, and it was wrong somehow that her eyes were open at all.

He closed them - it was like the movies, like there should be dramatic music playing, like she'd sit up and stretch her limbs when the cameras stopped filming. Like the huge tear in his chest wasn't even real at all.

"I love you."

There were more words to say, so much more to tell her before she was locked away in a coffin, locked away from him, but they were all jammed up in his throat. His brain buzzed numbly; the paralyzed feeling returned. He felt like a child who hadn't quite learned to walk yet, aware of his limbs but unsure how to make them work.

_I love you_ didn't cut it, couldn't possibly encompass it all, so small and so common and holding only a modicum of sanctity, but nothing else came after.

* * *

_A/N: I just read an analysis on the above cummings quote, and the poem it comes from doesn't exactly mesh with _Fringe_, but maybe it does, a bit. I don't know. That one line just fits this fic pretty well, and makes for a good title. I originally wanted to do an Atwood quote, but I couldn't make into a good title, so now we have cummings._

_Updates will, hopefully, be fairly regular. Hopefully._

_\- Ellie_


	2. chapter two

_A/N: Damn, I'm so sorry for the massive space between updates. I guess the only thing I can say is that school kicked my ass. _

_I changed some of the details in the first chapter, but all you'd need to know is that Etta wasn't born until a year after Peter's interaction with the Machine. That's all. Oh, and, sorry for the weird breaks between sections. This site's horizontal lines aren't working properly for some reason. Enjoy this chapter!_

. . .

First sunrise without Olivia.

He noticed this as his newborn squirmed halfheartedly in his arms, and looked down at her, thought of all the people who lost their loves to childbirth and blamed their children ruthlessly and unfairly. He couldn't; Henrietta was so _tiny_ in the crook of his elbow, nestled against him, warm and sleepy and dependent. Her big blue eyes watched him briefly and then fluttered closed.

"You tired?" he whispered to her, though she was already drifting from consciousness. "Me too, kiddo."

He didn't move, though couldn't return to his bedroom just yet. The sun peered over the horizon, reluctant, blotches of color across the sky, darkness lingering. It was so simple and beautiful and it held him there. _When the world is full of promise_, she had said to him, but this universe, at the very least, should be cold and dark now. But it wasn't. The world still turned and the sun still rose. His daughter fell asleep.

Despite Olivia's complications, Etta was healthy, and with the influence of Broyles's badge, Peter was allowed to take her home. The sweet-antiseptic smell of the hospital had made his mind feel hollow, skull empty. Maybe it still was, paralyzed by the sunrise.

"Your mommy," he murmured to Etta, even though she couldn't hear him. "She loves this time of day. Told me that it was her favorite. Why she gets up so early, I don't know. But that's Mommy for you."

Etta dreamed and kicked her little legs.

It was still a numb thing, thinking of Olivia. Like it was panicky worry, a worst-case-scenario concept, not his reality. He imagined his and Olivia's life with their daughter so many times there was no way she couldn't be around to experience it. All those months of Olivia loving Etta, waiting for her, just for a fleeting blip in time with her? All the plans they'd made, all those moments spent preparing for their future, wasted? It just couldn't be possible.

Could Olivia really be gone?

Suddenly too drained to tackle the stairs, he stumbled to the couch and laid down, settling Henrietta on his chest. Small noises escaped her, limbs moving slowly, idly. He closed his eyes and started to hum, a lullaby he remembered in bits and pieces from his childhood. It only existed Over There, and had only been sang to him when he was very small, but he didn't know that. He just had the vague notion that his mother used to love it.

He slept eventually, his feet dangling over the arm of the couch, and his mind conjured up Olivia. She was holding Etta, a look of amazement on her face. He didn't dare approach her, didn't dare interrupt. He knew, somehow, that the second he did, she would shatter, and she would leave all over again.

. . .

Fourth sunrise without Olivia.

Her funeral had been beautiful, he supposed. As beautiful as that sort of thing could be. He'd started crying, so quietly he hadn't realized he'd been doing so until Ella, of all people, had taken his hand.

"One time," Ella had whispered to him, under her mother's tearful eulogy. "I was sad about my daddy not visiting me, and I was crying, but Aunt Liv told that it's okay to be sad and get your tears out when you need to. So she wouldn't be mad or anything that you're crying."

She'd hugged his leg then, and didn't let go until they left for a dismal, grim reception at the Bishop residence; it was only a few of them, Peter, Walter, Rachel, Ella, Astrid, and Broyles. Peter and Rachel had agreed that that was the way Olivia would've wanted it. She had never been one for the spotlight. Rachel had joked feebly that she'd never been allowed to as much as give Olivia a birthday present.

At the house, Rachel pulled him into her arms and whispered _I'm so sorry_ approximately a million times, and he couldn't say it but he felt unworthy of her apology. She had never known a world without Olivia. He had, in an emotional and literal sense, and while he'd never wanted to know one without her, would never _want_ this, it was leagues different. All he could do was bring his arms around Rachel, any coherent response sticking in his throat, hands trembling.

Eventually, she pulled away, and Walter reluctantly offered his condolences to her, not even looking at her, his eyes fixed on the ground. Social interaction wasn't his strong suit, especially when mourning was involved.

"I don't know if Olivia ever told you," Walter continued. "But I knew both of you when you were very young."

Rachel could only blink, surprised, taken aback that he could had chosen that, instead of the general condolences, to say to her.

Walter nodded. "You should know that Olivia . . . Olive was always very compassionate. She was always special, and I am going to miss her."

Rachel swiped at tears, grieving too much to question anything, and said thickly, "Thank you, Dr. Bishop."

Peter shifted Etta to one arm to place a hand reassuringly on Walter's shoulder. Etta slept easily, and Walter glanced briefly at Peter, tears in his eyes. Nobody was spared the pain of today. Walter ambled off to the kitchen.

Time passed sluggishly, and Peter could only hold his daughter close and wait for everyone to leave. Broyles was first, then Rachel and Ella, and lastly Walter asked Astrid to take him to the lab. When he was finally alone, he collapsed onto the couch with Etta looking up at him with clear blue eyes. Her were fingers curling and uncurling as if she was constantly forgetting and remembering that she had them. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and then to her forehead.

"It's just you and me, kiddo," he said softly. "But we're gonna be fine."

. . .

Peter had been using the Bridge to get from the alternate universe and back; he only used his "ability" when Walter ran his tests. He figured it was best that both versions of Broyles knew his whereabouts. Today, he brought his newborn daughter with him, after double-checking with Walter no part of the crossing over would hurt her (he knew, logically, that it was just walking through a door, but he had every right to worry), to meet her big brother.

Upon leaving the Bridge, he was handed a Show Me with his picture and fake information, an item everyone from his universe received whenever they had business in this universe, and he used it to catch a cab to his son's apartment. He didn't want to cut himself out of Henry's life, but he wasn't not sure what he'd feel, seeing _her_ ghost. He just hoped that he could manage some form of composure.

He knocked on her door, and she answered with her eighteen-month-old son on her shoulders, hands curled in his mother's bright hair.

"Daddy!" Henry shouted excitedly before Olivia could speak. "Look! I'm _so_ tall! Look, look!"

"I see, buddy," Peter said, smiling for Henry's sake.

"Hi, Peter," Olivia said, softness in her voice, sympathy. He wanted to express his sympathy to her too, because a tentative relationship was growing between the two Dunhams, an understanding on his Olivia's part. It couldn't be easy to cope with the death of yourself. Everyone, anyone, deserved the sympathetic looks he'd been receiving so much more than him. This Olivia continued: "I heard about . . . what happened. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." He remained impassive, one of the staples of a con artist he'd had to pick up quick. "Me too."

"I also heard." Her tone grew lighter, smile less pitying. "That you named your daughter _Henrietta_?"

"Her idea," he told her, shifting the infant in his arms without thinking about it. He almost brought her in a car seat, but she hated that thing, prefered constant human contact. "She said that our daughter's the closest thing to an alternate that Henry will ever have."

Olivia nodded, and Henry peered down at Henrietta. "A baby," he commented in a soft, pondering sort of voice.

"Yep." Peter forced brightness. "She's your sister. Her name's Etta."

Henry tilted his head, considering her with dark green Dunham eyes. He rested his chin on Olivia's head.

"Etta," he echoed, testing the word out. "She tiny. She play with me and Momma?"

"Not quite yet, little man," Olivia told him, patting his knee.

Henry pouted, but then Etta made a cooing noise, and he was instantly fascinated. "Whoa," he said quietly. "She talk to me?"

Olivia smiled, and Peter's heart ached, flung itself wildly against his ribs. She said something to her son and then ushered Peter inside with an easy smile that helped, because it was so _her_, so unlike his Olivia with her tentatively happy smiles and the slow illumination of her eyes.

He played with his son for a while and tried to forget.

. . .

Tenth sunrise without Olivia.

He thought about his "ability" quite often; before, it had been irrelevant and useless, because all he could ever need had already with him. But he felt broken now, his heart yearning and bleeding and begging for relief. The pain was a sharp stab over and over, suffocating him slowly, constantly. He needed to escape; that was the Peter Bishop way, after all, and it was temporary this time. He wouldn't leave Etta forever, couldn't just abandon his child forever.

He dropped her off at Rachel's with a rehearsed but expertly delivered excuse. A quick trip, he told her. To regain perspective. She was very understanding, not hesitating to take her niece. Peter pressed his lips to Etta's forehead one last time, thanked Rachel again, and then set off.

There were infinite universes out there; infinite Olivias, infinite Peters, infinite Walters and Ettas and Rachels. Whole worlds shaped by a miniscule change in choice, in fate, each at his fingertips. In an empty corner of Harvard's campus, he closed his eyes, pictured Olivia, and found himself in another place.


End file.
